


(Artificial) Intelligence

by Lapsed_Scholar



Category: The X-Files
Genre: (or not), Artificial Intelligence, Dialogue-Only, Episode: s11e07 Rm9sbG93ZXJz, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Killer Robots, Suggestive Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 08:20:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16512698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lapsed_Scholar/pseuds/Lapsed_Scholar
Summary: “You’ve invited the robot overlords into your space, Scully. You know how afraid we used to be that the Consortium had bugged our apartments? You’ve bugged your own apartment. The walls literally have eyes and ears.”





	1. Levity

He’s not all that used to waking up here yet, and especially not waking up here alone.

He hadn’t expected to be so sanguine at her move—when she hadn’t renewed the annual lease on her apartment in DC, he tentatively offered that she could come back home instead of picking up this sublet, and she closed her eyes like she did when she was getting ready to shut off her emotions and fight him. He braced himself to take another blow to the heart.

But then she opened her eyes again and looked into his, and the plain affection in them soothed him.

“Not yet, Mulder. I’m not saying ‘no.’ Just... not yet. I think we both still need space on occasion, and I want to take this slowly, let us adjust to things for once. Enjoy where we are without feeling the pressing need to run forward.”

He didn’t necessarily agree (not entirely), but she was still looking at him fondly and running her hands along his chest while she said it. And when she kissed him, there was far more tenderness than raw lust.

So. He feels all right.

He had been surprised by the house, at first—all the modern (invasive) technology and sleek lines don’t really seem like Scully. She likes her spaces decorated with an air of careful warmth and hospitality. So what on earth had made her want to rent this particular house? It’s undoubtedly very nice, but still. He had been turning the whole thing around in his head after he had first seen it in all of its sleek, machined glory, and he eventually worked out a theory that she was using it to make furtive commentary on his own distinctly analog and somewhat shabby decorating style—allowing the stark difference between the two spaces to serve as notice that she thinks they ought to look into updating the Virginia house.

She had given him a sly little look out of the corner of her eye as he was helping her move boxes, and, yes, OK. There was definite commentary there.

Minx.

If twenty-five years already weren’t enough to solidify it, that would have. He is an utterly lost man: irrevocably and hopelessly in love with her.

This house, though. Even though he’s absurdly pleased by the shot she took at him, he’s not sure he likes this ultramodern house. He feels like it’s watching him whenever he’s here. And maybe... judging him.

He complained to Scully about it on one of the first nights he spent in it. Though, granted, his complaint was probably undermined by the fact that he had buried his face in the comfortable hollow between her neck and shoulder, and he more or less mumbled it into her skin.

“You’ve invited the robot overlords into your space, Scully. You know how afraid we used to be that the Consortium had bugged our apartments? You’ve bugged your own apartment. The walls literally have eyes and ears.”

“Hm, well. That certainly didn’t seem to bother you earlier.”

“I’m experimenting with exhibitionism in my old age.”

Still, though. It makes him uneasy. And so he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself when he wakes up one Sunday morning without Scully to distract him from the uncanny conviction that he is being watched.

It’s the second time he’s woken up this morning; the first time had been fairly early, when Scully left the bed to get ready for church. He sat up, as well, yawned, rubbed at his face, and made to get out of bed to find his clothes and go home. But Scully laid her hand on his shoulder.

“You could... stay. Go back to bed, and then we could have lunch or something when I get back? If you want.”

This being Scully-speak for  “Please, Mulder, I very much want you to stay,” and feeling no inclination to leave, himself, he lay back down and went back to sleep.

Upon waking for the second time, though, he realizes that being here without Scully makes him incredibly uneasy. He tries to talk himself into believing that the house isn’t actually studying him. That for all that people call this type of technology “smart,” it’s really just insensible, anonymized algorithms. That surely the employees of these companies have better things to do than watch him shower in Scully’s ultramodern bathroom with its completely transparent, clear glass shower stall. (Although, yes, OK, if they were really into watching the shower stall, they’ve already seen far more titillating things by now. No point in being bashful this late in the game.)

He gives himself a soothing pep talk as he moves back into the bedroom, finds some clothes, and relocates to the living room. (There are a lot of his clothes here, some of which he brought, but many of which Scully apparently stole.) He sits on the couch and pulls out his phone (that’s probably carefully curating a profile of him based on his browsing history and location). He studiously ignores the feeling of being monitored and tries to find a lunch recipe that he can use to impress her. The house ruins his willful ignorance by informing him that the kitchen does not currently have enough basil to make homemade pesto and offers to order it for delivery, and he startles and curses at it and tells it to be quiet.

As he’s deep into pondering if she would prefer coconut curry or matzo ball soup, he hears something peculiar. It sounds like a laugh. More specifically, a laugh in the distinctively-tinny, automated female voice of the house. He shakes his head. He has to be imagining it. But then he hears it again.

It’s laughing at him.

This fucking house is _laughing_ at him.

He does the only thing he can think of to do and bolts out the front door.

~

She’s surprised when she comes back from church to see him sitting outside in front of her building—her heart endures a painful little twist of disappointment, afraid he might be leaving after all.

But, instead, he takes her by the elbow and tells her that he wants to take her out for lunch. They spend the day running all around the greater Washington DC area investigating local parks and shops and museums that he has apparently been dying to show her. They end up back in Virginia by the end of the day and spend the night out at his house (their house) in the country.

Over the course of the next few weeks, she can’t be sure... but it seems like he’s avoiding coming home with her. He’ll gladly accompany her around on errands, meet her for dinner or lunch, invite her home with him. He’ll even tempt her to shirk propriety and share a room with him on a case. But he suddenly seems to have developed a number of excuses why he can’t come over to her place, and when he does, he always has some ostensibly-reasonable excuse why he can’t stay the night.

There’s nothing at all in his behavior toward her that indicates he’s feeling hurt or reserved. He’s as openly affectionate as he ever was. If anything, he’s even clingier than normal when they’re at her place. But the pattern is suspicious. It’s a puzzle she can’t quite work out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This vignette was inspired by a news story that popped up shortly after the episode aired. Apparently Amazon's Alexa was just... randomly laughing at people. Without any prompting whatsoever. It turned out to be a bug. Whoops.


	2. Outstanding questions

“It’s just... there’s one thing I still don’t get.”

“Just the one?”

“Very cute, Scully. But why the hell would you open a haunted, evil vacuum cleaner and then let it loose in your house in the first place?”

“That’s simple. I didn’t know it was haunted and evil. These things don’t come labeled.”

“But you didn’t order it, Scully. It just sent itself to you. Didn’t you stop to think that was maybe a symptom of haunting?”

“I don’t know, Mulder. Why would _you_ sleep on a waterbed that you _swear_ you didn’t order and you _insist_ just appeared in your bedroom and ripped a hole in the space-time continuum?”

“Because it felt good on my back. And, well, it was there. Might as well use it.”

...

“And since I’m sure you don’t model your questionable decisions by asking yourself what I would do in your place, that still doesn’t explain the vacuum cleaner.”

“Well, Mulder, to be perfectly honest, I thought _you_ sent it to me.”

“Me? Why would I send you a vacuum cleaner? Much less an evil crawly one? And then not tell you about it?”

“Well, I mean. You sent the other thing without telling me about it.”

“Scully, there’s a very big difference between a man who sends his wife a surprise vibrator and one who sends her a surprise vacuum cleaner, and I hope you know which kind of man I am by now. Although, as turned on as I am that you like it enough to carry it around with you, if you were that worked up, you could’ve invited me back to your place.”

“Who says I didn’t want to? But I figured you would probably have some excuse why you couldn’t come.”

“Can you blame me? That house was clearly possessed by an evil, electronic entity.”

“I don’t know about _all_ that. I think the technology was designed to be helpful, although it wasn’t capable of showing discernment or judgment in its attempts to help. For example, that ride service must have logged how much I had been on my phone at dinner and concluded we didn’t need any time to talk to each other.”

“Future’s what we make of it, I guess.”

“Precisely. Machines are incapable of critical thought or true learning. It’s what continues to distinguish true intelligence from artificial facsimiles of it.”

“ _Speaking_ of artificial facsimiles...”

“I don’t make a habit of carrying my sex toys around with me, Mulder, all right? Actually, I had to pick that one up off the floor.”

“Oooo, Scully.”

“That was your fault.”

“How is that my fault? Wha—Oh wait, yeah, I remember now. We just left it under the bed?”

“We were preoccupied at the time.”

...

“Mulder?”

“...preoccupied, yeah.”

“No, I mean—ahh—what are you doing?”

“You mean you can’t tell? I’m not doing it well enough, then.”

“Nnno, I can definitely tell. It’s just... I... thought we were having dinner now.”

“Mmmm. I _was_ planning on eating. Eventually. You can be awfully impatient, Scully." 

“Unnnnh. _Mulder_.”

“Did that mean you want me to stop?”

“Mmmmno. But... ahhh... come up here a minute... Technology might enable new avenues of human connection, Mulder, but will never replace it.”

“I do like the sound of that.”

“Evidently.”

“Yeah, well, come on then, Scully. Let’s go connect the old-fashioned way somewhere that won’t wreck my knees. It’ll look better if we’re not _both_ walking funny tomorrow.”

“Hmph. We’re still eating dinner afterwards.”

“That’s what Grubhub is for. Embrace the future, Scully.”

“The future is what we make of it?”

“Precisely.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This little dialogue started out simply trying to answer the question of why on earth Scully would open an incredibly suspicious package and then turn the demon-vacuum loose. But then the more I wrote, the more suggestive it got. I would apologize, but I'm not really sorry.
> 
> (But seriously, Scully, why?)

**Author's Note:**

> I work with computer systems all day. Computers are very, very stupid, but they are very good at doing exactly what you tell them very quickly. (I'm with Ada Lovelace on the whole "artificial intelligence" thing.)
> 
> I really like this episode for how it explores that concept. The danger is not so much that we'll create hugely powerful machines that will develop their own autonomous will, take us over, and destroy us. It's far more likely that they'll amplify our pre-existing flaws, and we'll use them to destroy ourselves.


End file.
